Where I Fall
by MusicSavesMe711
Summary: HetaOni fic: In the aftermath of the mansion, everyone is struggling to cope with their new lives without Viola. Chiara, as the other half of Italy, has something to share, if the other nations will accept it... Songfic. Nyotalia characters.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or the song. The song is Where I Fall from HetaOni and the lyrics belong to sapphirianna on tumblr- I'd post the link but FFnet only deletes it- and definitely are not mine!  
**

**You should check out her other songs too, she's just amazing! This one just happened to inspire me...  
**

**I have this headcanon that while Viola (fem!N. Italy) is good at painting and the like, Chiara (fem!S. Italy) sings beautifully. So this monstrosity happened.  
**

Chiara looked wonderful as she took the podium before the rest of the nations, her country's prosperity a stark contrast to her own loss. If one was paying attention, though, as all of the nations were, they would be able to say with confidence that her eyes expressed the loss that her body could not. Hazel hued orbs were dark, blank where they would normally be filled with the fire of anger. The nation of Italy was thriving, but the person was barely there. When she spoke, she sounded tired, as if her vocal chords had taken too much of a beating to get up with her that morning. The World Meeting was officially supposed to be over now, but she'd gotten Monika to keep everyone behind, saying she had something to pass on to everyone concerning the horrific incident of the past month.

"None of you will have known this already, but I was closer to my sister than I let the rest of you see. I... shouldn't have been so concerned over it while I had the chance to spend as much time with her as I could, but we were connected as siblings and as nations and I know more about her experience in that mansion than perhaps I should. She… would've wanted you to know how she felt about all of you." Choked up now, Chiara had to spare a moment to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes.

"While no one could ever match Viola in most of the arts, singing was a talent she never mastered. It's the only way I know to share emotions with any of you, so I'll be her voice, for... the last time." No one could find any words to speak as she walked over to the radio everyone had disregarded and pressed a few buttons on it, prompting several instruments to drift out through the speakers. Isabel hurried across the room to hold her girlfriend's hand as she picked up the microphone next to it and switched it on. No one else could see, but Chiara's hands were shaking. She was beyond anxious about singing in front of everyone, but for her lost sister, for the most precious person she'd ever known, she'd do it. Not one of them had ever heard her sing (unless Isabel had snuck into her house while she'd been in the shower) and though no one had the heart to mock her now, she didn't want them to think any worse of her than she knew that they already did. _It should have been you… _At least no one had said it to her face. Silent tears fell from her eyes as she raised the microphone to her lips and opened her mouth to sing.

This is where I fall.

Can you hear my voice call

To you in this darkness,

Through curtains of the night?

But I'll defend

And hold our friendship dear.

I will take my final step into this despair for you.

This is where I fall.

Can you hear my voice call

To you in this darkness,

Through curtains of the night?

And you'll survive.

If it's my final cry,

Forget me and flee

To the safety of the moonlit sky.

Standing alone,

Under pouring rain.

Decisions lie before my feet.

And will I forget all the joy, laughter and pain

We all suffered through together, my friends?

"I will defend your life," you told me that day.

And I cowered away to hide.

Now I am alone,

With no one else here to hold.

Their lives slipping away like an hourglass.

How many more times will I

Be allowed to make mistakes?

How many more times will I

Have to tell the same lies?

How many more times will I

Have to watch my dear friends die?

How many more times will I

Be alone once again?

So, this is where I fall.

Can you hear my voice call

To you in this darkness,

Through curtains of the night?

And I won't stand

Being alone again.

So I step forward

For the battle of my life. For you.

I will die here,

Where I fall?

Can you hear my voice call

To you in this darkness,

Through curtains of the night?

And I will die,

Defending your life.

Though I wanted only

To leave this place with you,

My friends.

By the time Chiara finished, she was kneeling on the floor with Isabel as she wiped an endless stream of tears away from her face and everyone in the room was crying along with her. She couldn't even wait until the final notes of the song had faded to let out a wail and bury her face in Isabel's shoulder in shame, unable to stop the shaking of her shoulders even though she knew all the nations in the room were watching.

"Se calmó, Querido…" Isabel soothed, whispering in her ear. "I know it hurts; we can do this when we get home…" Chiara nodded, but she couldn't quiet her sobs or quell the shaking spreading through her limbs. Her face was flushed from embarrassment as well as tears; the blush spread all the way down her neck. She knew everyone was staring at her, wondering why, _why should she be so upset, she's the only Italy now…_ She didn't even know whether she was crying for the Viola she'd always taken for granted or for her own selfish desire to be recognized for herself. _It should have been me. It should have been me. It should have been me!_

"Tomate? Are you all right?" Chiara jumped at Isabel's words and felt a chill come over her as she realized she'd spoken aloud, screamed it even. She lifted her head out of her girlfriend's shoulder and looked around the room, thankful in a bad way that she had been speaking Italian and now… there was no one left to understand the language…

_It should have been me…_

Chiara shot to her feet and ran out of the room to take refuge in the bathroom. She gripped the sides of the sink tightly, feeling the steel crumple under her fingers and wishing it was that damn monster's throat. She wanted to connect with her mafia, wanted to feel the pulse of that thing weakening and halting altogether, wanted to get revenge for her sister even if she couldn't protect her in the first place-

A hand came down on her shoulder and she yelped, one of her hands moving to the gun which was supposed to be on her hip but _wasn't there, damn it _and the other shot out in front of her as she whirled around to hit her attacker, only for both of them to be caught in a strong grip. Her eyes widened as she came face to face with Monika, Viola's best friend, the woman Viola had loved, and _oh dio her stomach ached, why wouldn't it stop._

"What do you want, Potato Bastard?" Chiara couldn't bring herself to be nice to the German, but her tone had none of its usual bite. Viola had loved her; Chiara couldn't be angry now that Viola was gone.

"I haven't really been able to talk to you since… well; I convinced Isabel to let me try to help now." Chiara made herself a mental note to maim the bastard who was her girlfriend. "Are you all right?"

"I'm _fucking peachy-_" Chiara snarled, but Monika raised a hand to cut her off.

"I was very close to Viola; you know that. I understand enough Italian to know what you said in there." Chiara froze.

"You're lying." _Fuck fuck fuck someone heard, what now?_

"I'm not." Monika didn't budge; she was as still as stone, and just as unyielding, too.

"I just… I…" Chiara shook her head. "No. You lost her, too. I have no right to unload anything on you." She turned away, fully prepared to storm out of the bathroom to find another place to hide- a place where she'd remember to lock the door this time, hopefully- except she was stopped by a heavily muscled arm blocking her path to the exit.

"We all lost her, but you were her only family. I understand how much you cared, at least. I… I cared deeply for her." Monika's face turned red and she gulped. "I mean to say, I loved her… But even so, I know that if it had been Maria, I'd need someone to talk to as well." Chiara shook her head.

"I won't; you don't understand. I don't _deserve _to-"

"You do!" Chiara was shocked into silence by the conviction in Monika's voice. "We've never gotten along, but that's because of how much you cared for your sister! You knew that I was in a position to hurt her if I desired to do so, and you made sure I had every reason to avoid it if I'd been considering it before! And you got Isabel to stop doing so many idiotic things with my sister all the time, which I'd never thought would be possible!" Monika looked down at her feet, now bright red. "I mean… just talk. I'll listen."

Chiara couldn't deny a request like that when it obviously cost Monika so much pride to make it. She'd insist that it was a request rather than a demand, anyway, for the sake of her own pride. A sob tore through her throat and she clung on to Monika like the entire world depended on it even though she hated herself for doing it at the same time.

"It should have been me!" she cried, this time in English. "Everything is wrong with me, and she was just so perfect, and now she's gone and I'm the only Italy the world has to settle with! If I could have saved you all, I would've at least been of some use, but now all I can think is why did everyone have to lose her when I'm Italy too?!"

Monika wrapped her arms around this new Italy and couldn't help but think how familiar yet foreign the situation was. For one thing, usually Viola was upset over something that had frightened her, but the emotion she knew Chiara was struggling with wasn't fear; it was despair. For another, Viola and Chiara weren't the same person, as much as Chiara seemed to wish it was so. She ran her fingers through Chiara's hair comfortingly, careful not to touch the errant curl after finding out what it was when she'd done the same to Viola countless times before.

"We need you here-"

"We needed her more!"

"Let me finish." Monika cleared her throat. "We needed both of you, and now we're learning to cope without half of Italy around. That doesn't mean that she's better, it just means that you're two different people and she's gone. We need you now; Italy is strong, and now you're the political head of it. We can't question why all of this happened, much less why she out of all of us had to… die." Monika sighed, holding back tears of her own. "If we do, it'll only drive us insane."

"Maybe insanity would be preferable… At least I wouldn't know any better."

"Don't say things like that, Chiara. We need you to be capable for the rest of us. We understand if you need time to recover from your loss- we all do- and we understand that you may never be the same as you were before, but that doesn't mean that you can give up entirely." Chiara nodded weakly against Monika's shoulder.

"I just… I miss her. Before all of this happened, I'd never gone a day without talking to her; even when we were apart, she'd always insist that she called me to say goodnight before she went to sleep. Now that she's gone…" She shook her head harshly. "I know logically that I can do this- that it'll hurt all the time, but it'll be okay in the end. But sometimes I feel like no matter how hard I try, I'll never be good enough without my better half."

Monika felt helpless; she could do nothing but hold her love's sister close and try to convince her that the feeling would go away with time; they still had plenty of time, after all.

"If you really feel that she was your better half…" Monika started. "Then the only thing I can think of is to keep her as your role model now. We both know that it won't- that it can't bring her back- but you can keep her with you if you think that way."

Chiara pulled away from Monika's hug, giving her a watery smile as she wiped away her tears. They'd be replaced by more, but habit demanded that she try to keep her face dry. "You've been doing that, too, haven't you." It wasn't a question. "She was always so emotional; the only way you're able to help me right now is by being the same way even though it's not natural for you." This was the first step to healing; Chiara could acknowledge that Viola was gone, but she still saw her in everything she passed. But even though it hurt, she could see that it was also beautiful in a way that none of the remaining nations could ever hope to be. Viola had changed everything she touched, and all of it turned into gold, more visible now than ever as she was not there to outshine it.

Yeah, she could do this. It would be hard- harder than anything she'd ever done or thought she'd have to do- but she could do it. She could go on, knowing that it was her job now to maintain that golden hue Viola had left in her wake. Maybe she could even create something silver from herself. She'd hold her head high even though she was sobbing on the inside, put up a strong front for her country even though Italy the person was falling apart, and she'd do her best to be just as special to everyone else from here on out as Viola had been to her. She wasn't sure how much of a follow up to her _wonderful, amazing, beautiful, precious _sister she'd be, but she'd be damned if she didn't even make an attempt.

She was all of Italy now, after all, and where would the other nations be without their Italy?


End file.
